


Ghostly Encounters

by echoinautumn (maybetwice)



Series: Camp Enterprise [2]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, Gen, Kid Fic, deaging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-26
Updated: 2013-05-26
Packaged: 2017-12-13 01:50:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/818551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybetwice/pseuds/echoinautumn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hikaru, Jim, and Pavel find a ghost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghostly Encounters

**Author's Note:**

> The next story from my Halloween meme (realizing that this is getting to be a protracted thing—sorry everyone!), for [](http://littlewolfstar.livejournal.com/profile)[**littlewolfstar**](http://littlewolfstar.livejournal.com/). This is a sequel in the same verse as my fic for the [](http://teamgoldxchange.livejournal.com/profile)[**teamgoldxchange**](http://teamgoldxchange.livejournal.com/), set about seven years later. You can read the first story [here](http://echoinautumn.livejournal.com/55142.html)! The plot of this is purely self-aware humor about my own camp experiences as a kid ;) (Additionally, this serves as a fill for [](http://au-bingo.livejournal.com/profile)[**au_bingo**](http://au-bingo.livejournal.com/), "Fantasy & Supernatural: Ghosts" and [](http://au-abc.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://au-abc.livejournal.com/)**au_abc** , "Quest".)

*

They’re twelve years old and just finished with sixth grade the summer that Bones is gone for the first time, but everyone knows that he and Christine are getting serious, judging by the ring she’d worn last year, and it’s not like Bones has been their counselor since they were seven, choosing instead to work in the first aid cabin by the main office with Christine as Camp Enterprise’s medical staff. When Jim found out, he kicked a tree stump so hard in his betrayal that he split his toenail and had to spend the rest of the afternoon glaring at Christine, who hasn’t left Enterprise yet. Pavel is too old to cry over something like this, but Hikaru looked miserable when he sullenly told him that this was _just the way life was_ now that they were growing up.

Hikaru isn’t sure when he became so decisive, so dismissive of the things that were so fundamental to everything they did as kids. It’s not intolerable, but Hikaru just wants things to be easier again. Being around a dramatic Jim is hard enough without a dramatic Pavel to go along with him, though Hikaru tolerates both daily when they’re at camp (up to two weeks since they were eight, but this year it’ll be a whole month), and now even more often because he’s been rotated into Jim’s class and Pavel moved into their school district the year before.

“Bones wasn’t supposed to go,” Jim muses from his bunk, staring at the ceiling like he has for the whole evening because he’s not allowed in the pool _or_ the lake until Christine can look at his toe and be sure that it’s not going to get infected or anything. That’s not until the next morning, and Jim’s been looking like a clipped dove all day: tragically miserable and charming in a way that Hikaru already knows is going to be really obnoxious in a couple years. Girls are already a little giggly around him, but they ignore Hikaru, who doesn’t have the same kind of shining aura Jim does.

“We’re too old for him now,” Pavel grumbles back at him and Hikaru rolls his eyes, finishing a letter to his oldest sister, who didn’t have a lot of time for him when she started high school, but starting college is a lot different. She actually cried when Hikaru went to camp this year, and this is the first care package she’s sent him, though she promised a second in another week.

“He’s getting married.” Jim rolls over onto his side and catches himself from falling off the top bunk. “I hate Christine.”

“You do not,” Hikaru retorts. He wanted to go to the storytelling campfire night with them, since they have the option to do that or play games in the mess hall, but the way Pavel and Jim are carrying on, he thinks he’d rather go by himself, or just stay in bed and smother himself with a pillow. Their counselor this year is Chris, who is both the head counselor and the director of the camp, so he often defers the boys to the woman in charge of the girls’ equivalent of Hikaru’s age group when he has to take care of other emergencies around the camp. Hikaru is pretty sure Chris won’t be around tonight to make sure all of the boys go to one or the other, so maybe he’ll be able to get away with avoiding Sturm and Drang, who share a bunk bed this year.

“We should skip the campfire tonight,” Jim suggests, and Pavel kicks the underside of his mattress from the bottom bunk, which he’s taken every year since the first year they were at camp together, when he conceded that sleeping on the top bunk is bad for him. “I’m serious!”

“Chris will kill us if we skip,” Hikaru sighs, as if he wasn’t just thinking about ditching them to get some peace and quiet. Jim looks excited, though, and Pavel is brightening with him while they talk about the different things they could do.

“Remember when we got lost in the woods first year we were here?” Jim slides off his bunk and climbs into Pavel’s bed. He pulls Pavel’s pillow against his chest and leaning against the rough wooden wall of the cabin. “That would be pretty fun, too. We know our way around now!”

Hikaru opens his mouth to stop him from getting carried away, but Pavel shoves him.

“We’ve done that before then.” Hikaru hasn’t actually been so glad to hear Pavel’s ornery bickering with Jim all summer, but before he can agree, Pavel continues, “But I heard some stories about the lake!”

Jim actually gasps out loud, like he can’t believe he forgot something so important. Hikaru actually groans as Jim grins and throws the pillow at Pavel’s head and crows, “Froggy Fern!”

“Oh my god, I can’t believe you two,” Hikaru finally interrupts, unable to contain his laughter, which bubbles out into the cabin and earns the three of them a curious look from Kevin. “You don’t actually believe in a ghost called _Froggy Fern._ ”

Jim blanches a little and exchanges a look with Pavel. Not for the first time, Hikaru feels a little left out of their effortless communication, as if their melodrama and similar dispositions make them more capable of understanding each other than him.

“You don’t believe in the ghost?” Pavel asks, and Jim’s eyebrow spikes toward his messy hair.

“No, I don’t believe in a stupid ghost. Don’t tell me—” Hikaru is incredulous, and rapidly losing patience, as if Pavel and Jim are playing a game that he doesn’t want to participate in.

“The stories say that Froggy Fern drowned in the lake because she got caught in the—whatever those are at the end of the lake are—”

“Cattails?”

“Yeah, those. Anyway, she’ll drag anyone down who doesn’t believe in her!”

“Don’t be stupid,” Hikaru scoffs and stands up from his bed, because this is beyond ridiculous now. Pavel is nodding along with Jim, and if either of them thinks they’re going to scare him like this, they’ve got another thing coming. “No one’s drowned in the lake, and we’ve been coming here for _years_ , and I’ve never heard anything about Froggy Fern.”

Jim sniffs at him, but there’s no time to keep arguing about it, because Chris has seemingly appeared out of nowhere and is calling for them to get ready for campfire night.

Hikaru knows he should be excited about it because campfire nights are always fun. He actually likes eating the weird tinfoil campfire stew, bouncing the hot package between his hands because he’s too impatient to wait for it to cool off, and he, Jim, and Pavel have gorged themselves on s’mores and burnt marshmallows at them for as long as he can remember coming to camp. He shoots the two of them a dirty look and wonders bitterly why things can’t be the same as they used to be. The dramatic stuff isn’t supposed to come until they’re in high school, and Hikaru never thought he’d outgrow them, but right now it feels like he has.

They’re standing in a loose huddle around Chris while he counts them before heading into the woods for the fire when Jim elbows Pavel and leans over into Hikaru’s ear.

“Froggy Fern’s definitely going to get you.”

“Shut _up_ , Jim,” Hikaru snaps, swatting at him over his shoulder and walking away, which earns him a sharp reprimand from Chris, but Hikaru only squares himself and marches into the forest after Chris.

He doesn’t speak to Jim or Pavel at the fire, especially because they’re following him around and making spooky ghost noises, and it isn’t until he drops the stick he’s roasting marshmallows on into the fire for the third time that he whips around and glares at Jim.

“You know what?” he declares, attracting a few stares from the people around them, but they look away. “I’ll _prove_ there’s no such thing as Froggy Fern.”

“I bet you won’t,” Jim says, rolling his eyes, but Hikaru is too annoyed to do anything but push him aside and march away from the fire. No one’s paying attention to them, anyway, and when Pavel and Jim follow after him, he shoots them another cold look.

“I’ll go to the lake, and I’ll look around, and when nothing happens, both of you are going to shut up about this Froggy Fern thing, right?” He knows he looks so fierce that neither of them can do anything but nod at him before he storms off into the woods, knowing also that they’ll cover for him in the meantime.

It’s lucky that the side of the lake that’s supposed to be haunted by Froggy Fern is the same one that’s bordered by woods. The moon is clear and bright, so he’s got a full view of the reeds and the cattails swaying gently with a passing breeze. It’s a warm night, but he gets the chills looking out at the greenery. It’s not _that_ much of a stretch of the imagination that someone could drown in the lake, and no one would find their body unless they went looking for them. Hikaru’s just about to go back when he hears a twig snap behind him and sees Pavel and Jim crashing over a fallen tree, looking guilty.

“We didn’t want you to chicken out,” Jim says, just as Pavel bursts out, “We couldn’t let you die!”

“There’s nothing here,” Hikaru says, but the two of them come tumbling out of the woods and look ambivalently at the lake and he knows he won’t get away with this easily. It hardly helps that the hiss of night bugs and the occasional hoot of an owl is setting him on edge, making him nervous about this.

“Well, you’re not close enough,” Jim grumbles, shoving him closer to the lake while retreating back toward the woods. “Go, grab one of the cattails. That’s good enough for me.”

“I swear to God.” Hikaru puffs out an irritated breath, thinking for a moment that it’s something Bones would say, and he doesn’t really want to grow up like Bones. “I’ll be right back.”

Pavel hovers outside the line of trees, but Jim’s just barely visible, and Hikaru marches down to the edge of the water. He hadn’t realized how far in he’ll have to go just to grab a cattail, it always looked so much closer. When he looks over his shoulder at the other two and realizes they’re never going to let this go, he toes off his sneakers and wades into the thick mud with a loud squelching noise.

“What was that,” Jim demands, surging forward from the shadows, all authority and sureness, even though he’s clinging to Pavel’s shoulder.

“It was just some mud.” Hikaru takes another labored step, his balance offset by his feet getting stuck in the sucking mud, but he takes another. A night bird shrieks and he jumps in surprise, pushed forward toward the nearest cattail, which he fights to snap from its stem. Something moves next to his foot and Hikaru loses his balance, going down with a loud shout and colliding with the muddy water with the force of getting slapped. He barely has time to think that the indignant croaks around him are from the frogs he’s just displaced before he also thinks that he’s lost his cattail in the water, which was up to his knees before, and that he’s having a hard time getting up, let alone breathing, no matter how much he flails around.

Four hands grab at his shirt, at his shoulders, and Hikaru sucks in a greedy breath of air when his head breaks the surface again, the back of his legs getting scraped by rocks and twigs when he’s hauled back to shore.

“Stand up, stand up,” Pavel chants into his ear, pushing him along, even though Hikaru is both trying to collect himself and grab his shoes before the two of them shove him toward the woods. He’s just looked over his shoulder with his shoelaces around his fingers when he sees a silvery figure between the reeds and trips over his mud-slick feet. The three of them dart through the woods, Pavel in front and Jim in the rear, turning over his shoulder periodically and hauling Hikaru back to his feet when he yelps in pain at a cut foot. When they break into the clearing where their cabin is, Hikaru thinks idly that he’ll stop taunting Jim about not being able to swim with his cut foot, but pushes it aside to wheel around to look at the other two.

“You set me up for that!” he shouts, but they’re all three shaking so hard that he knows neither of them planned it beforehand, not least of all because he was the one who suggested he’d go disprove the legend anyway. “Oh my God.”

Jim pulls him toward the shower on the side of the cabin and turns on the water so he can clean off, and when his clothes are cleaned off and no less wet, Pavel shuts off the water and Jim folds both of them into a tight hug that Hikaru and Pavel both return.

“What _was_ that?” Pavel croaks, and Hikaru half expects Jim to tell him it was Froggy Fern, but he only shakes his head and clings to them tightly.

“I’m not going back to the campfire,” Jim says quietly, and both of the other two nod, in favor of returning to the cabin. Hikaru nearly bars the door when they’re inside, but he knows Chris will skin them for it if they do, even if they have seen ghosts.

Instead, he pulls on his pajama pants and a camp t-shirt from the year before, which he deliberately got a little big so it would fit him now, too, and when he turns around again, both Jim and Pavel are huddled on his bed in their own pajamas. Any other time that summer, he’d have complained that they were being obnoxious, but when they peel back the covers and he climbs in with them, Pavel doesn’t even say they’re too old for this. Jim’s the biggest of the three of them, further along in his growth spurt than either Pavel or Hikaru, so when Hikaru huddles between the two of them, Pavel takes the side closest to the door.

“Hikaru?” Jim says after a long time, and Pavel hums quietly, as if to warn them to shut up so he can go to sleep. “I’m sorry for—well, you know.”

“Being an ass?” Hikaru mutters, and is surprised when Jim nods. “No problem.”

There are a few more beats of quiet broken only by a cicada outside. Then Pavel asks, “Do you think that was really a ghost?”

Jim looks down and meets Hikaru’s eyes, then over his shoulder to meet Pavel’s. Hikaru feels bad for hating him, because Jim is a nice kid, and he’ll probably be a good guy, however intolerable he is right now. Jim’s always been a little more protective of the two of them, always looking out for them, especially at school.

“Of course it wasn’t,” he finally says, though Hikaru is sure none of them believe him. “There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

“Right,” Hikaru affirms, though he reaches down and clasps both of their hands like they’re little kids again. “No such thing,” he echoes quietly, and snuggles down into his pillow more. Jim shifts beside him, and Pavel on his other side, and they fall asleep like that, one after the other, as the adrenaline drains from them. His last thought before he falls asleep is that they should move before Chris finds them like this, but if he minds, he doesn’t say anything, because the three of them wake up together the next morning, and everything’s the same, just like always; exactly right.


End file.
